Just finished an interesting lunch conversation with my colleagues, one of whom is going off to business school next year and traveling the world this summer. I was commenting how I would probably have to wait until I retire to be able to do exactly what he’s doing this summer. At this point in the conversation, one of my partners recounted the advice she got about the triangle of health, wealth and time. The basic claim is that if you have any two of the three, you’re in pretty good shape. For example:

When you’re young, you have your health and time, but no wealth.

When you’re in the middle of your career, you have health and wealth, but no time.

When you’re older, you have wealth and time, but probably not health.

At which point we all agreed that the last one might not be so great depending on the level of health, but it’s intriguing to think about nonetheless. Perhaps even more interesting to think about is which two of the three you’d pick if you could, and whether your priorities line up against those two. For example, if you prioritize health and time, but spend all of your time working, not exercising, eating poorly, etc. – that may not be internally consistent. Anyways, interesting lunch conversation…